‘The Amazing Spider-Man 3’ delayed until 2018

Following the disappointing box office returns for The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise of Electro, Sony has delayed the release of its sequel from 2016 to 2018.

The Amazing Spider-Man 3 does not have a specific date in 2018, suggesting that perhaps the studio is waiting to see how their still-slated villain team-up flick Sinister Six fares in 2016 before committing to more movies from this particular universe.

According to Variety, The Amazing Spider-Man 4, once dated for May 2018, has been taken off the slate entirely.

The writing’s been on the wall for some weeks, with TASM3‘s screenwriters having mostly walked away.

TASM2 collected an impressive $706 million worldwide, and yet, because of its gargantuan budget, barely turned a profit. It is also the lowest grossing of the Spider-Man movies, and the worst reviewed to boot. Yes, it score a lower Rotten Tomatoes score than Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3.

Surely Sony execs are wondering if maybe they’d not be better off retiring Andrew Garfield and rebooting once again in four years time.